I finally got my first COVID vaccine. In addition to being awed by the science that made the shot possible, the environment created a palpable sense of seriousness — something big and important warranted the work that went into creating this temporary distribution facility.
I wasn’t just walking into a doctor’s office to get a routine shot; my vaccine was in a pharmacy that was visibly and substantially jury-rigged into a vaccination site. You could see the dismantled shelving units piled up in a corner, the exposed 2x4s and unfinished drywall, the half-painted walls that displays used to cover, residual marks the shelves left on the flooring, and wall signs that were reminders the space used have a very different use.
My shot was administered by a pharmacy technician whose reassignment of duties also signaled that this wasn’t business-as-usual, rather an exceptional need that called for deploying any and all resources that were available to address it.
The temporary and almost McGyvered nature of the environment conveyed a sense of urgency to me — something important was happening here that justified such a hurried retrofitting and obvious displacement of the normal transactions. Truly, it gave me pause.
The next time you are undertaking a big change effort, keep this vaccination site in mind. Maybe the way to convey urgency isn’t to present it with a neat and tidy bow, rather get quickly to the work at hand even if it’s a bit messy around the edges.
